This comes to mind. I'm sure most readers have seen it. "I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots." Some say Einstein said this, others say he didn't. Don't matter cuz sure as shit somebody said it and I agree.
Seventeen years ago, when my boys were still under ten, I bought a place that bordered on woods and a creek. I, naively thought that the boys along with our Lab, Sandy would spend their days building forts and having adventures in the woods, as well as catching frogs/turtles/minnows/crayfish much like I did while I was growing up. The kicker was that there were two brothers roughly the same age who attended the same school and lived a few houses down. Forty years ago this would have been the formula for endless days of play and coming home "when the street lights came on". Much to my chagrin, the boys down the street had an XBox and my boys were lured (willingly) into the video game world. When I sent them out to play thinking they were in the woods playing army--they were playing some shoot 'em up game on XBox at their friends' house. The other kids' parents never sent their kids outside to play, because "the woods are dangerous".
I almost got bit on the face by a copperhead chilling on fence post about 2-3 weeks ago so I have to agree, forests and jungles are dangerous. I think the record right now is around seven dead copperheads in a day. There is also the matter of bobcats, feral hogs, rattle snakes (rare), broken cedar branches to impale myself on if I slip down a steep hill, large rocks, and two-legged, no-good, randos that turn up. Snake bites are a $15K-$30K bill in the USA.
I was an isolated nobody growing up on a dead end "farm" and I only went into the woods because there was literally and absolutely nothing else to do and only my sister and later a cousin to interact with; no one else for miles, and no street lights either. My childhood was a decade of relentless boredom and friendless social neglect and homeschooling. My torture finally came to an end when we got dial-up internet around 2000 and I was able to learn about the real world; most other people had internet in the early 90s.
It's fortunate that your kids weren't nearly so isolated as I was and were able to escape being robbed of their early years. This may sound harsh, but it's sick, abusive, and setting kids up for failure by forcing that kind of sheltered, no-tech, low-information lifestyle on them in 2005, more in current years. Tech dominates every aspect of life and not knowing how to use it and alter it from an early age is preparation for being handicapped later in life. People 40 years ago didn't have too many choices but today, kids live online and jump from one game world to the next; absorbing stories, concepts, and characters along the way. Encouraging the gamer in them might have directed them into music composition, 3D modeling & animation, programming, or any number of lucrative careers that cross over with game development.
A kid in my neighborhood was asked why he chose to stay indoors, instead of going out into nature to play. His response, with something of a "Duh, Boomer!" attitude was, "That's where the outlets are!" Phucking sad.
This comes to mind. I'm sure most readers have seen it. "I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots." Some say Einstein said this, others say he didn't. Don't matter cuz sure as shit somebody said it and I agree.
ReplyDeleteSeventeen years ago, when my boys were still under ten, I bought a place that bordered on woods and a creek. I, naively thought that the boys along with our Lab, Sandy would spend their days building forts and having adventures in the woods, as well as catching frogs/turtles/minnows/crayfish much like I did while I was growing up. The kicker was that there were two brothers roughly the same age who attended the same school and lived a few houses down. Forty years ago this would have been the formula for endless days of play and coming home "when the street lights came on". Much to my chagrin, the boys down the street had an XBox and my boys were lured (willingly) into the video game world. When I sent them out to play thinking they were in the woods playing army--they were playing some shoot 'em up game on XBox at their friends' house. The other kids' parents never sent their kids outside to play, because "the woods are dangerous".
ReplyDeleteI almost got bit on the face by a copperhead chilling on fence post about 2-3 weeks ago so I have to agree, forests and jungles are dangerous. I think the record right now is around seven dead copperheads in a day. There is also the matter of bobcats, feral hogs, rattle snakes (rare), broken cedar branches to impale myself on if I slip down a steep hill, large rocks, and two-legged, no-good, randos that turn up. Snake bites are a $15K-$30K bill in the USA.
DeleteI was an isolated nobody growing up on a dead end "farm" and I only went into the woods because there was literally and absolutely nothing else to do and only my sister and later a cousin to interact with; no one else for miles, and no street lights either. My childhood was a decade of relentless boredom and friendless social neglect and homeschooling. My torture finally came to an end when we got dial-up internet around 2000 and I was able to learn about the real world; most other people had internet in the early 90s.
It's fortunate that your kids weren't nearly so isolated as I was and were able to escape being robbed of their early years. This may sound harsh, but it's sick, abusive, and setting kids up for failure by forcing that kind of sheltered, no-tech, low-information lifestyle on them in 2005, more in current years. Tech dominates every aspect of life and not knowing how to use it and alter it from an early age is preparation for being handicapped later in life. People 40 years ago didn't have too many choices but today, kids live online and jump from one game world to the next; absorbing stories, concepts, and characters along the way. Encouraging the gamer in them might have directed them into music composition, 3D modeling & animation, programming, or any number of lucrative careers that cross over with game development.
- Arc
Maybe he's running away from home.
ReplyDeleteA kid in my neighborhood was asked why he chose to stay indoors, instead of going out into nature to play. His response, with something of a "Duh, Boomer!" attitude was, "That's where the outlets are!" Phucking sad.
ReplyDelete